Blog

On Saturday 9 March 2019 RX Radio Reporter Tarique hosted a live one hour special program, where he was counting down the Top 10 latest tracks from 09:00 – 10:00. He was joined by fellow RX Radio Reporter, Saadiq who interviewed Dr Beth Engelbrecht, the Head of the Western Cape Department of Health who shared her thoughts on RX Radio

RX Radio has grown exponentially; we have trained 76 reporters and we have range of brand new shows that will make their debut on RX Radio soon. However, after Tarique’s Top 10 broadcast, RX Radio had a mock broadcast with five of these new shows. The mock broadcast was not LIVE on air, as this was the first time for these reporters to host a show. But these shows were recorded and will be playing on RX Radio very soon.

Here’s the list of the new shows:

Talking Politics and Jazz with Saadiq and Imaad.

Mama Africa hosted by Jesse and Alande

Heartbeat hosted by Summayyah and Thaakirah

LZK Music Show hosted by Luzuko

FDS (Fashion, Singing and Dancing) hosted Uli, Kanyo and Anelisa.

In April 2019 these shows will broadcast LIVE for the first time, so keep an eye on our social media pages so you don’t miss out.

On Tuesday 05 March 2019 Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital spent a day celebrating a number of important paediatric transplant milestones. These included:

The 50th year of Paediatric Renal Transplants

The 40th year of Paediatric Bone Marrow Transplants

Almost 40 years of Paediatric Heart Transplants

The 30th year of Paediatric Liver Transplants

RX Radio covered this milestone event with Young Reporters Hakeem, Kauthar, and Tarique interviewing organisers and guests at the J&J Hall at Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

The celebrations went well as the Provincial Minister of Health Nomafrench Mbombo did the welcoming speech to all the guest. RX Radio Reporters were able to interview Professor Minnette Coetzee (Speaker) from the University of Cape Town(UCT) and Professor Mignon McCulloch, PICU Consultant and Paediatric Nephrologist at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. Besides interviewing Medical Professionals, the Reporters were also able to engage with a lot of people who received various transplants from Kidney to Liver, Heart, Bone Marrow and Renal transplants.

We had a pre-recorded broadcast at Expresso on the 22nd of June 2018: Expresso is a lifestyle and news morning show. A few of RX Radio presenters joined in and they were part of the morning show’s schedule. They were interviewed on what it meant to be a part of RX Radio and they also got to meet the interesting guests of the show.

On the 12th of June Loyiso Mkhize and Clyde Beech met up with RX Radio reporters to further discuss the concept for the comic book, and a lot of useful information came from the session. After this session they came back on 25th of June to discuss the storylines, plots, personal stories and overall experiences of the reporters.

Since the comic will be adapted to a radio drama, Nigel Vermas conducted a three-day radio drama workshop from the 25th to the 27th of June. This has been instrumental in preparing the reporters for their roles in the radio drama and it has also taught them the basic principles of a radio drama. Vermas is going come back in August for a follow up workshop where he we look at the material that was generated during the workshop, this will also include recording these into mini radio dramas. This is to motivate and engage the participants, in a manner that would consolidate the theory into practice.

RX Radio received 20 tickets from BIG Concerts to give to our reporters and their parents to attend Cartoon Network Live at Grand West on the 27th of June. Cartoon Network Live is an interactive stage production for children aged 5 and up, featuring Cartoon Network’s most popular heroes from the Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time & Ben 10. Gita Amber Carroll, Owner of Thanda Consulting, helped facilitate the organizing of the tickets for us.

One of our reporters, Yusrah, also interviewed a number of the children in attendance to get their thoughts on how the show was. The event was an overall success and great fun was had. Look out for this coverage on our upcoming broadcasts.

The Institute for Child and Adolescent Health Research at Stellenbosch University has completed their first Exploratory Study on the perceived impact of RX Radio on the children, parents/caregivers and health professionals at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

Trained data collectors from Stellenbosch University’s Institute for Child and Adolescent Health Research interviewed healthcare workers and hospital administrators, child presenters, child listeners, and parents/guardians of child presenters to investigate the station’s contribution to the lives of the aforementioned participants.

The findings concluded that RX Radio has a positive impact in the hospital community. This study is available on our ‘Research’ tab herein.

On Saturday the 9th of June RX Radio held a certificate ceremony for the new Child and Young Reporters who completed their basic training during the last April holidays. Nine out of the 10 new Reporters attended the event with their families where we all listened to the radio diaries that they produced in the week of Basic Training.

The radio diaries all told personal stories that the children worked on from the 3rd to the 7th of April 2018. During this time, the trainees were also taught radio and broadcasting skills – including how to use a recorder, talking on the radio, life skills and developing interviewing techniques.

After listening to their radio diaries, each child received an RX Radio Certificate and was given the option of becoming a full RX Radio Reporter. The majority of the children have chosen to continue at RX Radio and will soon have their radio diaries featured on our website.

We began operations on the 1st of December 2016. The initiative aims to create a platform for communication between hospitalised children, their families, and the health services by providing patients with the skills and support to produce and broadcast radio programmes across the hospital.

On Saturday, 19 May 2018, RX Radio celebrated 1 year of being on air. We had various guests which included the likes of Kgomotso Matsunyane, Pippa Hudson, Mae Sithole, Beatenberg, Ryan O’Connor, Dr Anita Parboo, Asili – The Originals, Amelia Matthee, Darren Deverts & Cato Bekker who celebrated this milestone with us.

The children broadcasted LIVE shows from 9am-3pm with pre-recorded shows playing from 3pm-9pm. The parents, together with the RX Radio Reporters, enjoyed the festivities and were encouraged that the station is growing from strength to strength.

To help sustain RX Radio,we welcome your financial support and this can be done by going to rxradio.co.za/support/

Please use “RX Radio” as your reference text.

For more information about us, please visit our website on www.rxradio.co.za.

New RX Radio Child and Young Reporters recording their stories in studio.

During the Easter holidays, RX Radio held its fifth basic training with a new group of aspiring Child and Young Reporters. Eleven children were trained from the 3rd to the 7th of April where they learnt the basics of radio and story-telling. For the five days, the children practiced using voice recorders, telling their own stories and interviewing friends and families.

Every training, the children attending RX Radio basic training are expected to produce a radio diary – a five minute story where the children can talk about their own experiences and interview people that are close to them. For the majority of the children, this means talking about their experiences with chronic illnesses or their experiences with having siblings attend Red Cross Children’s Hospital. For others, this means expressing their own stories about any topic they wish.

A new element was also added to this April basic training for the first time: experienced RX Radio Young Reporters were asked to help facilitate the training – thus sharing their knowledge and experience with the new children. Amirah, Qaqamba and Alex were all involved with facilitating different activities in the training and guiding the children to become future RX Radio Child and Young Reporters. This transfer of skills through facilitation was very successful as both the new children and the experienced RX Radio Young Reporters learnt a lot from each other.

All eleven of the children’s radio diaries are currently undergoing final edits and will be available on our website in the near future – so keep an eye out for some captivating stories coming your way!